Debate: Should Local Council Elections be Restored in Malaysia?

The Office of State Assemblyman of Subang Jaya, Hannah Yeoh, will be organising a debate on the motion ”Should Local Council Elections be Restored in Malaysia?” to encourage more public awareness and discourse on the topic.

Date : 7th June 2009 (Sunday)
Time : 2:30pm
Venue : Sri Sedaya School, SS13 Subang Jaya
Free admission to all.

Participating debaters will include:
-Tony Pua Kiam Wee (MP for Petaling Jaya Utara)
-Gobind Singh Deo (MP for Puchong) and
-Sivarasa Rasiah (MP for Subang).
VS
-Iqbal Hafiedz Ahmed Bazari (Best debater in the Inter Asian Universities Debate)
-Suresh Gnasegarah (Semifinalist in All Asians Debating Championship 2002, overall best speaker)
-Faisal Moideen (Semifinalist in All Asians Debating Championship 2002)

The objectives in organizing this debate are:
- Exploring methods of local govt elections
- Pros and cons of local govt elections

For more information, please contact:
Rajiv Risyakaran
Special Assistant,
Office of State Assemblyman of Subang Jaya Hannah Yeoh
Tel: 016 - 238 0045
Email: rajiv@dapsj.com

Have you ever felt that the service of the local town council is not up to par or below standard? Or having made numerous complaints through various media and yet nothing seem to be done about the problem for many years? Overcharged for simple fixes such as damaged drain by the local council?

The cause of the problem can be traced to the way the local council is set up. The control of power has been the same for many, many years. When this happens, the local council tends to take the needs of the residents lightly as there are no external parties to threaten them and they end up slacking in their duties and thus not serving effectively.

The general public was never given the chance or freedom to have a say about their local town council.

One way to resolve the problem is by giving a chance to the local public to have their say about the way the local council is set up. This can be done by having a vote or election just like how the public normally votes for their government but the people will be voting for their local council instead. The practice of having a local election is not new as it has already been established in other countries such as Australia.

In this way the local council committee will be forced to improve services or risk being rejected by unsatisfied citizens and replaced with a more promising local council board that can better take care of their needs. The local council also will be more transparent to the public and the people’s state of living will be vastly improved.